Directed By Brian Kirk

Starring – Emma Thompson, Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca

The Plot – While traveling alone throughout snowbound Northern Minnesota, Barb (Thompson) interrupts the kidnapping of a teenage girl (Laurel Marsden). Hours from the nearest town and with no phone service, she realizes that she is the young girl’s only hope.

Rated R for violence and adult language

Dead of Winter | Official Trailer (HD) | Vertical

POSITIVES

A unique framing device goes a long way towards compelling an audience, and while “Dead of Winter” does have brushes with familiarity in its set-up of a plot, its execution taps into an unforeseen sentimentality factor that surprisingly takes a simplistic story miles, all the while cementing a noteworthy improvement for Kirk since his last directing effort (21 Bridges), more than six years ago. Kirk’s commanding hand seems dedicated towards fleshing out the aspects of the environment, both with an isolation factor enacted terrifically with lots of overhead and wide angled establishing shots conveying that distancing from lawful eyes, but also in the chilling palpability of its freezing temperatures, enacted impactfully by a weathered color texture in the cinematography from Christopher Ross. Because of such, it’s one of those films that effectively transpire the authenticity of its geographic relevance to anyone who ever had to grow up around freezing temperatures, with characters seemingly having to work twice as hard towards calculated actions, in order to overcome blankets of snow and hypothermia, among their own chess game of confrontation, and it makes the physically stoic work here from this small but captivating cast all the more impressive in having to work alongside it. On that aspect alone, the performances from Thompson and Greer offer a stirring capability to evade preconceived typecasting from an audience’s experiences with each, with the former articulating the resiliency and persistence of a woman grappling with her own grief, while the latter attempts an antagonistic turn that might be devilishly devious, but nevertheless maintains the humanity of her character in a motivation that is easy to understand, despite the maniacal way she goes about enacting it. Thompson trades in her familiarized English accent for a Minnesota drawl that surprisingly grows to feel naturally endearing within her intended deliveries, and while Greer rides the drifts of conventionalized outlining, her unsubtle oppressiveness in anxious deliveries seamlessly conveys the urgency and stakes that the character is simultaneously living through, allowing each actress ample time to shine within the sparsity of the ensemble, but also the shifting complexities of the storytelling continuously forcing each of them to think fast and ferociously on their feet. In terms of aforementioned violence and brutality, the movie tastefully relents on its depicted gore, in order to appeal to a broader audience, but even in its restrain puts these characters through the proverbial ringer with hit detection in the production that transfers boldly to the interpretation of the audience. Most fortuitous here is the blanketing sound design, which paralyzes sensibilities each time gunfire is being elicited to the silently piercing overhead atmosphere, allowing it to penetrate with the kind of cunning surprise that makes the hairs on your arms stand up, especially in its echoing amongst the isolation factors of the environment. Likewise, the camera work could easily grow complacent in the lack of possibilities in such an open and undesirable location, but Kirk challenges convention with many ambitious sequences that prove he wouldn’t put his actresses through anything that he himself isn’t willing to endure, with these prolonged takes throughout contested physicality that roll and contort to mirror the realities of what’s transpiring in the conflict, and while a claustrophobia factor in proximity could easily mar the transparency of what’s being captured, Kirk places great faith in the production’s editing to piece everything together, resulting in these intense sequences that never sacrificed clarity for chaos. Lastly, I previously touched on an unforeseen sentimentality for the film, and it’s fully realized by the film’s final five minutes, with an ending resolution that is every bit ambitious as it is audacious, especially in the risks it takes that could possibly alienate an audience. For my money, I never felt that confliction, and instead applaud Kirk emphatically for the strings of backstory with Barb that magnetically come together in its zero hour, in turn enacting some hard hitting realities that somehow surmise something unexpected, even with ingredients that are highly predictable, all capped off with a highly meaningful last second transition that binds the past and present accordingly by finally conveying Barb’s motivation for being there.

NEGATIVES

While I found much about “Dead of Winter” endearing, it certainly isn’t without faults, particularly in the abundance of overlooked conveniences and contrivances in a screenplay that definitely could’ve used a secondary draft. This is especially plaguing towards the end of the second act and beginning of the third, where not only are characters able to pull off remarkable feats of strength despite a hindering physical condition, but even during the opening act questions about Barb writing on a window to communicate to the kidnapped, yet forgetting to wipe it off, require far more suspension of disbelief than should be needed for such a conflict, but Barb’s periodic stupidity pales in comparison to these boneheaded lapses with logic from her opposition that unsubtly remind you that this is a movie, at the end of the day, in turn compromising the air of imposing stature within the antagonists in ways that simultaneously undercut the magnitude of the established conflict. This leads to my second issue with the film being a consistency of imbalance between the back and forth from Barb and her duo of antagonists, with her more times than not getting the upper hand on them, even early in the film, where their ambiguity should make them as dangerously unpredictable as expected. This isn’t an aspect that is going to bother everyone equally, but for me, I especially appreciate whenever a thriller is able to stack the adversity in the antagonist’s favor, making it all the more impressive how the protagonist will battle their way out of it, and while Barb does eventually face some semblance of overwhelming odds during the movie’s climax, she clearly feels like she has a home field advantage, with regards to the established setting, which in turn directly undercuts the variety of thrills that we come to receive, even in a movie classified first and foremost as such. Because of such, the opening act was honestly the most difficult for getting attached to the narrative and its characters, with a corresponding consistency of flashbacks to Barb and her husband’s time on the lake lacking the kind of definitive context that artistically justifies such an inclusion alongside the storytelling, and while I knew it would all eventually piece itself together, as evidenced in my praises towards the movie’s ending, it does take longer than necessary to summon the kind of context worthy for the cause, with these periodic intrusions that take away time from the foreground establishing, crafting a bit of a tonal imbalance, if these flashback transitions managed to last longer than a minute, each time they’re abruptly summoned.

OVERALL
“Dead of Winter” proves that vengeance is a dish best served cold, especially with stoically unconventional performances from Emma Thompson and Judy Greer tapping into a moral and emotional versatility that breaks the preconceived typecasting of their respective talent. While the script takes a little longer than necessary to break the ice, as a result of its conveniently contrived writing, the monotony eventually dissipates with a battle of wills that uncovers quite a bit of humanity between its dueling duo, leading towards a bittersweet and symbolic execution of an ending that tenderly tugs at the heartstrings of its invested audience, even at the possibility of frostbite from Brian Kirk’s palpably immersive direction reveling in the aspects of the chilling environment.

My Grade: 6.9 or C+